I should know better

It`s only autumn and already I`m laid up with another chest infection, wheezing in time to the seasonal gale outside. It was brought on by a rash visit to a local show when I already wasn`t at my best, and led to a visit to my usual quack on Tuesday afternoon.

Waiting for the prescription to be filled, I nipped into the local cafe for a tuna pannini and coffee.

I gazed out at the rain and ate and coughed. And coughed. Fortunately the place was empty.

The owner came over and made solicitous remarks and we discussed the possibility that it was Going Round at the moment and that Everyone Seemed to Have It These Days. I coughed some more.

When I got up to leave he rushed over with a container.

"I brought you some soup to take away. It was just going to waste."

Horribly embarrassed, I hurried out, feelng that somehow the words "Old bag lady" were stencilled on my back and that I wasn`t long for this world.

But on the way home I thought - what might have happened if I had done my coughing in the bank.....?

A few hours old - Camilla and her two massive sons

It`s that time of year again, and I`m tied close to home with another litter.

Looking back on it, really I should have given firsst-time mother Camilla a good book on the subject, or asked her mother to have a word with her. Some ambitions should be discouraged, and an attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records with theWorld`s Biggest Papillon Puppy is definitely one.

She started well (“Push, dear, push !”) but soon stopped and gazed at me helplessly. When I saw the size of the head sticking out I quailed. I`l spare you the details, but it helps to have small narrow fingers. I heaved him out, somehow, and had the devil`s own job getting him to decide to live. Then I got the scales. Seven and a quarter ounces. Camilla only weighs five pounds or so. She sat and regrded her rear end with amazement. Well yes…so did I.

And then the next puppy more or less fell out, the exit having been enlarged considerably by his brother. One look at him and I reached for the scales again.

Seven and three quarter ounces. Camilla was trying for the half-pound pup. Half a pound is about a tenth of her total bodyweight. Work it out, girls – how many of you would like to try it? I think it comes out as the equivalent of a fourteen pound baby….makes you cross your legs just to think of it.

But Camilla can`t do maths.

And Hercules and Goliath are both doing well

They seem to congregate at certain times of day. Lost men in Tesco. They wander with dragging feet, staring at the shelves like the legendary fish who has just been presented with a bicycle.

I found one on Tuesday, gazing blankly at the deodorants. "Awww Jesus!" he sighed.

"Come on - it can`t be that bad?"

He glared at me.

"I`m in Tesco with a shopping list. How bad can it get?"

I met one once who presented me with the list.

"I just can`t quite read the last one."

"Meringue nests", I read out.

His face sagged. "Aye, that`s what I thought it said." I could see the words "I didn`t know meringues made them" hovering on the tip of his tongue.....but he didn`t quite dare.

I told him he needed the baking department and his face lit up .

"Aw, it`s a CAKE!" he cried with relief.

"Well no, not exactly. You need to find the baking ingredients."

Blank stare.

"With the flour and baking powder and so on."

He was appalled. This was just as much Women`s Stuff as lipstick and tights. Forbidden, taboo.

"I`m no goin` there. " Inspiration struck. "I`ll tell her they`d run oot."

And he headed off, out into the real male world, where the only things that make nests are pigeons.